Uncovering the Truth About Sea Moss: Benefits, Risks, and Sustainability

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Embark on an insightful expedition into the world of sea moss with me, Sheila, at Zero Waste Imperfectly. As the proprietor of Life Essentials Refillery, I'm daily faced with questions about this oceanic superfood's true benefits and potential risks. Our conversation will peel back the layers of health claims and unveil the complexities behind the nutritional value of sea moss, providing clarity amidst the sea of misinformation. We'll navigate through the murky waters of environmental contaminants like cadmium, lead, and arsenic that may taint the purity of this celebrated alga. This episode promises to arm you with the knowledge needed to make informed decisions about incorporating sea moss into your diet.

Discover the critical differences between the Irish variety thriving in cooler waters and its warm-water Caribbean counterpart. Not all sea moss is harvested equally, and it's essential to understand sourcing and growth conditions if you're considering consumption. We'll also tackle the contentious debate over pool-grown versus ocean-grown sea moss, and why supplier transparency and testing—such as those conducted by Main Coast Sea Vegetables—are paramount. Join us for a robust discussion that seeks to enlighten both the health-conscious eater and the natural product enthusiast intrigued by sustainability's challenges.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, lovely listeners, and welcome to Zero
Waste Imperfectly.
I'm your host, sheila, and I'mthe owner of Life Essentials
Refillery, a sustainable grocerystore in Wesley Chapel and in
Tampa, florida.
Today I want to talk to youabout sea moss.
It has been a very popular itemand there's so much information
out there about sea moss andI'm still trying to cipher
through it all and see what'sfact, what's fiction, which

(00:22):
source you can actually believe,and it's just overwhelming.
And I know people are coming insaying it's such a good,
healthy thing to eat.
I need to eat a lot of it.
And then you read about whatcould potentially be in it and
the Proposition 65 warnings thatcome with it say hmm, I don't
know, is it really good for meor is it not good for me?
So I went through.
The company we buy our sea mossfrom is Main Coast Sea
Vegetables and their productsare labeled with a Proposition

(00:45):
65 warning, and that's becausethey do sell to the state of
California.
So if they were to sell theirproducts not in the state of
California, they would not needto put this label on here, but
they do, and what they test foris cadmium, lead and arsenic,
and so the reason that they haveto label.
It is because sea moss is grownin the ocean and seaweeds in
general absorb.

(01:06):
They're very good absorbers.
That's why they're sonutritionally dense.
But not only do they absorb thegood stuff, they absorb the bad
stuff, and in the ocean youhave no control over what's
being absorbed.
You can't tell the plant, hey,or the seaweed please don't
absorb this, but do take this.
So that is a concern.
And so it's funny when you goto certain websites.
I was on Dr Axe's website andhe says that it's great.

(01:27):
Irish sea moss is great forfertility.
And then I go back to MaineCoast Sea Vegetables and said
they have found levels ofcadmium that, even though
they're still in a safe harborlimit that can affect fertility.
So it's really hard to say isit really healthy or is it not
healthy?
Should I take it or should Inot take it?
And then there's the big debate.

(01:47):
Everything's labeled as Irishsea moss, but they're not all
Irish sea moss.
Irish sea moss comes fromIreland or the Atlantic coast
and it's grown in cooler water.
So if you're getting Irish seamoss from, let's say, the
Caribbean, it's not actuallyIrish sea moss, because it wants
temperatures under 70 degrees,ideally.
So then you're getting aCaribbean sea moss or a St
Lucian sea moss, but they're alldifferent and the nutritional

(02:09):
content.
So if you're buying sea mossfrom a vendor that doesn't
analyze their product, you don'tknow what you're actually
getting.
So that's what I love aboutMaine Coast they test everything
and do it once a year, so youknow exactly what you're getting
in your sea vegetables, whichis really good, because
typically people buy somethingand eat it for a specific reason
.
And if you are assuming thatmaybe the St Lucian sea moss has

(02:29):
the same benefits as the Irishsea moss, you might be mistaken
because it wasn't ever tested,so you really don't know.
And another thing that I hadfound is there's so much
information online saying don'tbuy pool grown sea moss, and I
spent a good hour looking Ithink I'm pretty good searching
the Internet.
I couldn't find any companythat claims to grow their sea

(02:50):
moss in a pool.
I see a lot where they aregrowing it in shelves or racks
or nets in the ocean, butthey're still grown in the ocean
, but I didn't find anybody thatspecifically grows them in the
pool.
And the reason I was thinkingabout this is because I know
with seafood or fish in generalgeneral, you can have farmed or
wild seafood, and there's prosand cons to both.

(03:10):
I personally thought that ifyou could get sea moss that's
grown in a pool which I wouldassume would be fairly simple to
replicate the conditions of theocean, because we do it in our
aquarium every day but you couldmake sure you don't have the
lead and the arsenic and thecadmium in it, which would be a
tremendous asset.
But when I was looking at fishthat are grown tradition in
traditional methods well, nottraditional methods, I should

(03:31):
say that are farmed they alsohave pollutants in there and
that's coming from thecontainers they're in and the
medications are given, butseaweed, hopefully, wouldn't
need any medications, so maybethat risk would go away.
So maybe it is better if youfarm your sea moss.
I don't know, but those are thethings I was thinking about
today and there's so muchinformation out there.
Check out main coast seavegetables.

(03:51):
It's seavegcom.
They have a lot of good factson it, yeah, and then really
think about why you're takingsea moss and if the levels of
the supplements that are inthere that you're trying to, or
the the vitamins and mineralsthat you're searching for, they
may actually exceed the levelsof what you're taking, or, based
on what you're taking, you maybe getting too much of what it
is.
So let's say they're really highin iodine.

(04:12):
Maybe you shouldn't have asmuch iodine as you're actually
taking from your sea moss andmaybe if you're buying your gel
already pre-made, you have noclue how much iodine is actually
in there because they didn'ttest it.
So just be careful.
Because there's so much outthere and it's such a hot
commodity right now, everyonethinks they should be making it
and selling it and you reallydon't know what you might be
getting.
So take some time toinvestigate, do your research

(04:33):
and make sure you're reallycomfortable with the sea moss
that you have and that it iswhat you're looking for.
Well, thanks for listening andI hope you have a great day and
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